This goes back a while from the Tyee, makes one wonder who to believe.

Let me briefly add two more flagrant terminological inexactitudes (a phrase invented by Churchill to avoid using the unparliamentary "L" word). One day on my show, I asked Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (under which authority fish farms rested) Minister John Van Dongen how many escaped Atlantic salmon, from fish farms, had been found in B.C. waters. He said three! Shortly after, I asked then-development minister Stan Hagen the same question and he replied: "My colleague was wrong; only two Atlantics have been discovered."

Thus was born "three fish" Van Dongen and "two fish" Hagen.

This was arrant nonsense, of course, and they both had to know it. Not only were fishermen, commercial and sports, catching these escapees in goodly numbers, biologist Dr. John Volpe had discovered hundreds in one watershed alone and his findings were widely published. Indeed, Fisheries and Oceans Canada had an inspector counting escaped Atlantic salmon. Clearly ministerial terminological inexactitudes are not offences in the Gordon Campbell Code of Ministerial Behaviour

Tony FarrellChair, Sustainable Aquaculture and Professor, Zoology and Land and Food Systems.

You buggar - got me The truth is the qualifications of this dude make him eligible for any venue he chooses to represent. He is a world respected fishery scientist who has taken an opportunity to discredit the pseudoscience of others; are you suggesting he should be muzzled? And, because a bright mind is suggesting aquaculture is necessary now and will become imperative to meet the demands of tomorrow's world, we shouldn't at least listen?

All I'm saying is you will have more information to make an informed response when this seminar is again available and you listen.

You buggar - got me The truth is the qualifications of this dude make him eligible for any venue he chooses to represent. He is a world respected fishery scientist who has taken an opportunity to discredit the pseudoscience of others; are you suggesting he should be muzzled? And, because a bright mind is suggesting aquaculture is necessary now and will become imperative to meet the demands of tomorrow's world, we shouldn't at least listen?

All I'm saying is you will have more information to make an informed response when this seminar is again available and you listen.

Not suggesting he should be muzzled at all but it seems to be happening too much these days with people connected to some governments and their agencies.. Of course this can prevent the truth from getting out, lack of transparency is very disturbing to many of us.

The guy's studies like physiology are always being challenged by new information from other studies. There is a differance of fish swimming with sea lice on them from fish swimming with ISA and other diseases. But hey lets not talk about how sea lice can weaken a fishes immune system etc.

Peter Robson (author of the book "Salmon Farming: The Whole Story") said clear test results showing the virus is present are now critical.

For years, critics have been blaming fish farms for declining stocks, but haven't been able to prove any permanent damage, he said.He said confirmation of the virus could be "one of the smoking guns in the salmon farming debate" and "may be a big problem."

"Is it a game changer? It would be a game changer if it was sourced to aquaculture," said Tony Farrell, a professor in the University of British Columbia's department of zoology.

But Farrell said scientists need to confirm where the virus originated, adding people "are jumping to conclusions as to the source of it.""I think if ISA is now around, we need to be worried about ISA," he said.

Daniel Pauly, a professor and director of UBC's fisheries centre, has been watching the debate since he came to B.C. in 1994 and said a piece of the province's culture is at stake.

"What is at stake is actually wild salmon," he said. "In Europe there is almost no wild salmon left. So there is not so much of a risk. In B.C., the wild salmon are huge and iconic in the province."

Pauly said he suspects the virus has come from the industry because millions of Atlantic salmon eggs have been imported to British Columbia.

The emergence of ISA, he said, has been inevitable, even though some have argued the probability was low, said Pauly.He called for a contingency plan to be developed.

According to B.C.'s Ministry of Environment, the province's salmon farming industry is the fourth largest producer of farmed salmon in the world, and in 2009, 18 companies operated on 131 sites.

It isn't much of a discussion when the same old inflammatory nonsense is dredged up over and over and over again in spite of being roundly discounted by additional information posted in previous iterations.

Does anyone remember Dr. Kirsty Miller's testimony at the Cohen inquiry where she indicated that her results suggested that presence of the virus she was identifying as ISA pre-dated the presence of imported Atlantic salmon in the province? Or is that just one of those inconvenient facts that consequently needs to be overlooked.....................